


How Strange the Change (from Major to Minor)

by mermaiddrunk



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/F, not sure if porn with mild plot or plot with mild porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:48:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1424050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermaiddrunk/pseuds/mermaiddrunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan's first real date with Jamie Moriarty doesn't go according to plan. Anyone's plan. </p><p>A sort of continuation of "I'd Sail Ships for You", but possible to be read independently (I think).</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Strange the Change (from Major to Minor)

Joan’s eyes flicker from her phone to the clock on the wall, to the pathetic, simpering smile delivered by the waiter who looks like he can’t be more than sixteen. The bottle of cabernet sauvignon, sent over by the manager when she first arrived, sits untouched.

It’s been sixty three minutes.

Low key and subtle,  _Morstan’s Place_  is effused with quiet sort of sumptuousness. She likes the touches of vintage décor, the plum and copper tones. It’s distinctly feminine, without being flouncy. Perhaps that’s why she invited Jamie here. Perhaps the place somehow reminded Joan of her.

Whatever the reason doesn’t matter anymore. 

It’s the second time in her life she’s been stood up. The first was by Mrs Wong’s grandson. Kevin, or Scotty or something, who was supposed to take her to some dance in sophomore year and got drunk under the bleachers instead. He was married now, according to her mother. Married with two point five kids and a white picket-fence. It was mildly disappointing at the time, but no great hit to her ego. She hadn’t even wanted to go to that stupid formal anyway.

Now however, Joan sits, in her new, overpriced dress, smelling of her favourite perfume, with her hair up and her make-up as perfect as it’s ever going to be, and she is filled with a heaviness, that would best be defined as disappointment. 

She looks at her phone again. No message, no missed call. No anything.

_Sixty eight minutes._

She lifts her chin to signal the waiter. He’s there in a second. “Would you like a drink?

Something to start while you wait? We’ve a lovely salmon-”

“The check,” Joan says in a voice like defeat. “Just the check.”

\--- 

 She gets home and Sherlock’s in the bathroom, wearing a lab coat and goggles and holding what looks to be a frozen banana.

She stares at him for a moment, head cocked as she attempts to absorb the image. “Do I want to know?”

He seems to actually think about it, before shaking his head.

“Well, I need to use the bathroom, so can you not be in here right now?”

He removes the goggles and looks her up and down. “You’re back early.”

“Yes.”  She doesn’t want to have this conversation with him. Not now.

“Not a successful tryst then?”

Joan sighs and begins pulling pins from her hair. “I guess you can file being stood-up under unsuccessful.”

He blinks and nods slowly. “Curious.”

“What is?”

“Well,” he places the icy fruit in the pocket of his lab coat and allows her to push past him into the bathroom. “She is clearly not as intelligent as I gave her credit for.”

Joan doesn’t quite know what to say to that. It’s the closest he’s come to even acknowledging the purpose of her outing that evening. So she says nothing, but offers him a wan smile as he leaves her to strip.

She realises just how exhausted she is after she takes off her make-up and climbs into bed, despite the fact that it’s barely ten. Instinctively, she reaches for her phone, and feels her heart claw its way into her throat at the sight of the text.  

_Something came up. I would still like to see you. I’ve sent a-_

Sherlock bursts into the room and she chooses not to comment on the icicles in his hair.

“Would you happen to know anything about the ominous black vehicle parked outside our home?”

Joan looks back to her phone.

_-car. Please make use of it._

She sighs. “How long has it been out there?”

“About six minutes.”

Joan presses the heels of her hands into her eye sockets for a second before looking back at Sherlock.

“If you don’t hear from me within an hour, check the Hudson for my body.”

“She'd never dispose of your body in a river,” he counters, as she throws the covers off and climbs out of bed. “It’s far too prosaic. If you like,” he offers, brightening up considerably. “I could inject you with a microscopic tracking device. That way I could monitor your-”

“You know what, I think I’m good.”

“Watson, I-” he crosses his arms over his chest, watching her pull items from her closet. “I hope you know that I am… here. Should you need to talk about ...” His mouth twists in strange kind of pout, “- things.”

“I know.” She says it softly, feeling both guilty and grateful when he finally leaves.

After some debate, Joan pulls on a pair of comfortable jeans and the new shirt she bought when she got the dress. She throws on a coat and for good measure, a pair of boots that will ensure she’s not towered over should her sparring partner be in heels.

She leaves her hair down.

And that’s it, she thinks, scrutinising her freshly scrubbed face in the mirror. That’s all Jamie gets.

It’s a toss-up between pride and vanity. Pride ultimately wins.

Getting into the car is an exercise in trust. Then again, engaging in anything with Jamie Moriarty should count as a trust exercise. Joan wonders if you can ever really trust someone who you know to be notoriously devious.

Her relationship with Jamie is kind of like looking through one of those kaleidoscope tubes everyone had when she was a kid. You could name all the colours, but the shapes where always changing, always blending and pulling apart and you could never tell if they were symbiotic or just chaos.

She recognises the burly, vaguely menacing-looking driver, who she’s seen open the car for Jamie on a number of occasions. He nods at her as she comes out.

“Where are we going?” She asks once she’s seated and buckled in.

“Lower Manhattan.” He’s British. She doesn’t know why that makes her feel uneasy. Maybe because it confirms that he’s one of Jamie’s ghost crew. Joan wonders about the places he’s driven, and the things he’s seen.  

The mystery location ends up being an upmarket boutique hotel mere minutes from the restaurant where they were supposed to meet. Tall, burly and British says nothing as he opens the door for her, but her phone buzzes the second she steps out into the cool night air.

_Hotel bar._

Instinctively, Joan looks around, half-expecting to see Jamie leaning against a pillar, trademark smirk affixed. But there is only the bellhop, helping an elderly woman roll in her three Prada suitcases.

Joan makes her way through the lobby, and finds the lounge with ease.

The bar is impressive. Warm and intimate, it has a small stage, where a singer is doing a pretty good job of covering Ella Fitzgerald. Joan might have appreciated it under other circumstances, but she’s feeling edgy and confrontational and the ambience is lost on her.

The few people at the bar are forgettable at best. A busty woman, in a tight-fitting green dress, smiles too brightly at a sandy haired man with a red face and a pale band of skin where he’d recently removed his wedding ring. Joan wonders if he knows how much she costs. In one corner, two women nurse apple martinis and talk with heads huddled together as if sharing secrets. At the end, a middle-aged man who looks sort of familiar, as if he were an actor or someone famous Joan can’t quite place, stares vacantly at the stage, clutching a whiskey.

And yet, Joan’s eyes are drawn to only one figure.

For someone who seems to operate primarily from the shadows, Jamie Moriarty makes a striking impression.

Golden hair, done up in an elaborate twist. Crimson dress, cut low enough to tease, but not reveal. Clear blue eyes that shine bright with mirth and all the mysteries of the universe.

She holds Jamie’s gaze as she approaches and for a moment, Joan swears she sees a flash of uncertainty in those eyes. It passes as quickly as it appeared and Jamie slides off the bar stool with effortless grace.

“Darling.” A fleeting kiss on Joan’s cheek, ghosting over her cheekbone. “You made it.”

Joan stiffens at the contact, fighting the instinct to lean into Jamie’s orbit. “You didn’t.”

Jamie pulls back at looks at Joan, _really_ looks at Joan for a second, and this time, the flash of hesitation is evident. She looks torn for the briefest of moments, before schooling her face back into its default state of unaffected charisma. “Yes, I’m terribly sorry about that. Business, you see.” She doesn’t sound particularly apologetic at all, and Joan’s annoyed.

She had expected more contrition.

Jamie reclaims her seat and waits for Joan to take the one next to her before wiggling two fingers at the bartender.

“I don’t want a drink,” Joan says, as he begins to mix some concoction involving what looks like cognac.

Jamie casually brushes her fingers over the back of Joan’s hand. “You’ll like it, trust me.”

The contact startles her and she makes a sound of hollow amusement. “Trust you. Right.”

Jamie raises her eyebrows. “You _did_ make me eat processed meat from a street vendor last week.”

Joan’s lips twitch at the memory. “This is true.”

The bartender puts two drinks in front of them and Jamie brings the glass to her mouth, watching Joan over the rim.

“You look lovely,” Jamie says, running her tongue over her top lip, in search of the sweetness left by the drink. It’s a blatantly erotic gesture and Joan wants to roll her eyes and scoff. She wants to say something dismissive and smart, but her eyes track the path of Jamie’s tongue and the best she can come up with is, “You should have seen me an hour ago. When I was dressed up. For our actual date. You know, the one you’ve been insisting we go on for the last couple of months.”

“Yes, it _was_ poorly done on my part.” Jamie makes a face of regret. “Then again, one never plans for these things to go awry.” She takes another sip of her drink and smiles too broadly, and Joan is reminded of the hooker down the table. “But you’re here now-”

“And what?” Joan looks at her with a doubtful expression. “I’m not here to resume anything, Jamie.”

“Then why come?”

That’s the question Joan’s been asking herself since getting into that car. Why indulge this fantasy? Why show up at all? Joan thinks it’s because she needs to know. She needs to know if it was just the chase that Jamie wanted. She needs to know why she wasn’t worth it in the end, and she hates that she’s reduced to this.

“I’m here to tell you, _in person_ ,” she emphasises, “That we’ve got to stop this. Maybe,” she hopes she sounds more convincing than she feels, “maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t come. It gave me a moment of clarity.”

The look Jamie gives her is patronising at best. “I do understand your need to put up the pretence of disinterest. You feel like giving in too easily would make you seem weak. But really, darling, we’ve been going around in circles for so long now, surely you can admit to wanting this.”

Joan does roll her eyes and scoff at this point. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

When Jamie looks like she might take that as a compliment, Joan shakes her head. “You’re the one who didn’t show. I’m not playing hard to get. I just think we’ve been kidding ourselves. And I don’t think _I’m_ the one who doesn’t know what she wants.”

Jamie’s face is unreadable. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Why didn’t you come tonight?”

“I told you, something came up. I arrived here much later than anticipated.” She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t want the gory details?”

“I want the truth.”

Jamie holds her gaze for a moment, before lowering her eyes, which Joan guesses is the closest she’ll come to admitting defeat. “The truth,” she waves her hand as if the very notion is laughable. “The truth is overrated, it’s-” she sighs and looks up. “It’s _boring_. No one ever really wants the truth. They want what will best fit that which they already believe.”

“Then here’s what I believe.” Joan says, “There was no business. You’re all dressed up. You were _planning_ to come. And then you didn’t. And you didn’t call, and you didn’t text, because you were debating whether to show up until the last minute.”

Jamie’s expression turns rueful. “So clever, Watson.”

“Not really.” Joan takes a sip of her drink. It’s sweet and citrusy and burns her throat in the best kind of way. “You also knew I’d figure that out, or you would have changed before I got here. You wanted me to see through your lie. What I can’t figure out, is why. Was this whole thing some elaborate ploy to humiliate me? Hurt me?”

Jamie looks genuinely wounded. “I would never intentionally hurt you.”

“Then why? And why invite me here after the fact?”

She looks over her shoulder to the stage, where the singer is crooning about how every time she says goodbye, she dies a little.

Joan watches Jamie, and imagines a complex mechanism of cogs and wheels turning in that brain of hers, as she weighs the pros and cons of honesty.

“You’re right. There was no… business.” She drags her gaze back to Joan, her expression mildly annoyed, as if she’s upset that she’s been backed into this corner, despite it being of her own design. “I chose not to come.”

“Right.” Joan takes a last swallow of her drink and reaches for her purse.

“Wait.”

Joan pushes her stool back.

“For goodness sake, Watson.” Notes of exasperation have seeped into Jamie’s voice and Joan sighs. She’s suddenly very tired.

“I don’t want to do this with you.” There’s no anger in it, just weariness, and Joan makes to stand. “I thought… I thought this was something that it clearly isn’t.”

“Hold on.” Jamie’s voice is strained now. “Sit down.” A beat before she says. “Please.”

She holds out a hand, eyes imploring Joan to acquiesce. It’s the ‘please’ that gets her in the end. She doesn’t know how genuine it is, but she wants to believe in its sincerity, which is really the problem, isn’t it? Everything about Jamie that she _wants_ to believe.

“It was my every intention to go,” Jamie begins. “I walked to the bloody place, and you were sitting there and…”

“And you thought standing me up would be a better option?”

Jamie practically grimaces, as if this line of conversation is physically painful. “I suppose I felt hesitant.”

Joan narrows her eyes with a dubious expression. “You’re saying you got scared?”

Jamie’s quick to answer. “I’m saying there are elements of this partnership that make me uncomfortable-” She runs a fingertip against her glass, capturing the moisture that has built up against the side. “Because I find myself investing more than I deem prudent.”

Joan looks at her with a mixture of bewilderment and frustration. “You think this is _comfortable_ for me?” Jamie opens her mouth to speak, but Joan cuts her off. “You think I find any of this-” she gestures to the space between them, “ _prudent_? Because let me tell you, it’s not and I don’t. I can list a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t be here with you right now. _You’re_ the one who pushed for this. You’re the one who went on and on about how we were dating and that there are worse things in the world than this.” She struggles to keep her voice low and it’s reduced to a harsh whisper.

“I know that.” Jamie replies through clenched teeth, clearly just as frustrated. “I _know_. I just… I failed to anticipate how _much I_ -”

“You finally realised this wasn’t some game where you could control the rules.”

She looks at Joan sharply. “This was never a game to me.”

“Bullshit.”

Jamie’s eyes flicker off to the stage before looking back at Joan, both her voice and expression collected. “Believe what you like.”

Joan sighs. “Why am I here, Jamie? Why tell me all this now?”

“I find cowardice to be a deplorable trait.” She swirls the last of the alcohol in her glass before knocking it back. “I needed to overcome my… weakness. And I wanted to apologise.” 

Joan takes her coat off her lap. “How very _honourable_ of you.”

“You’re angry.”

“You know what?” Joan lets out a laugh, devoid of any humour. “I am. And it’s my fault. I think somewhere along the line, I stopped seeing who you really were and started seeing who I wanted you to be. And it’s not fair. I can’t expect you to change.”

Jamie looks contemplative as she looks away from Joan. “No.”

Joan nods, surprised at how hurt she is by the easy defeat. Part of her expected Jamie to put up more of a fight. Then again, perhaps Sherlock was wrong. Jamie was being smart enough for the both of them.  After all, this thing, between them can’t _go_ anywhere.

It’s not the first time she’s thought this, of course, yet somehow, she thought that when it actually happened, when they actually sat down, without the subterfuge, and masks, that something would change.

But all that Moriarty is, is subterfuge and masks. There is no core, no ‘real her’. There are only fragments. Some of them shiny and pretty, some sharp and jagged, and Joan can’t seem to make them fit, no matter how hard she tries. She can’t solve Jamie again, not when she’s part of the puzzle. And this, Joan thinks, it the terrible truth of it.

With Jamie as the initiator, as the pursuer, Joan could lose herself. _I didn’t want this_ , she could say if things got messy. But now, in the face of Jamie’s uncertainty, Joan is at a loss. To fight for it, would be to change the rules. To fight would be to admit, in no uncertain terms that she _does_ want this, whatever this is, and she can’t do that without turning herself inside out.

And so she walks away. 

 But even as she walks away, it’s Jamie’s voice that lingers, like an echo that won’t fade out.

_I failed to anticipate how much I…_

She makes it out of the lobby and through the doors, and halfway down the hotel steps before she hears the fast, rhythmic click of Jamie’s heels against stone. Fingers close around the sleeve of her coat, and Joan feels herself being tugged, pulled backwards and around.

Jamie’s breath comes out in sharp puffs in the night air and in she exhales shakily. Her eyes remain fixed on Joan. An icy blue, cracked with a thousand emotions Joan can’t begin to name.

Her hand runs from Joan’s shoulder, to the broad lapel of her coat.

“Don’t do this,” Joan hears herself say, even as Jamie takes a step down, effectively eradicating what space was left between their bodies. Cars go by, horns honk and somewhere, a siren wails. But Joan hears none of it. There is only Jamie.  

“Do you want this?”

Joan swallows and looks away. To look at Jamie is to feel and she doesn’t want to feel. Slender fingers curl around her lapel, crushing the material and Jamie tugs her even closer. There’s a sort of raw desperation in her voice as she asks again, “Do you want this, Joan?”

When Joan finally looks at her, the answer comes as easily as breathing. “Yes.”

The kiss is an inevitable thing. It doesn’t matter who leans in first or who whose breathless gasp it is when their mouth finally connect. All Joan knows is that it feels a little bit like dying and a little bit like living for the very first time and all those kisses with all those guys, on all those dates suddenly seem like a different thing altogether, because if this is a kiss, this exchange of breath, of tongues, of simmering heat, then surely what she experienced before was something else, something less.

It’s Jamie who eventually rips her mouth away and rests her cheek against Joan’s as they pant in unison.

“Come on,” she whispers, reaching down for the tail of Joan’s coat and tugging towards the direction of the hotel.

Joan follows dutifully; her heart thrumming to a frantic beat inside her chest. She feels drunk with a kind of recklessness she so rarely allows herself.

She keeps up with Jamie’s quick, determined pace as they head towards the elevators.

 The doors open with a ping and as they step inside, Jamie turns to her, with silk on her tongue. “Watson, I-”

She’s interrupted by the two men who come bustling in after them. One of the men pushes the button for the floor above Jamie’s and continues speaking to this partner in rapid Japanese.

Jamie stares straight ahead, a face a mask of guileless calm. She does not look at Joan, does not talk to Joan. And the elevator is filled with the back and forth of the two men, whose conversation sounds fairly heated.

And then, the barest touch. The side of Jamie’s pinkie finger against her own. Joan’s body becomes a visceral thing; the only evidence of this is her sharp intake of breath, which fills the carriage.

When the doors ping open again, Jamie’s fingers close around her hand and she feels herself being pulled out and onto a trajectory she has no control over. She has been sucked into Jamie’s orbit, or maybe Jamie has been sucked into hers, and Joan feels like she’s spinning wildly through stars, with nothing to hold on to. It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

There are only two doors on the floor and it takes her a second to realise they both belong to the same suite.

The beep of numbers being punched into a keypad.  

Joan watches with interest as the light stays red and Jamie curses under her breath. Her fingers are trembling as she tries a second time. The light goes green and Jamie pushes against the door, allowing Joan to enter first.

The room has a subtle baroque theme. It’s opulent, but tasteful and reminds her a little of the restaurant they were supposed to meet at. Jamie fiddles with the lights, until it’s down to a dim, orangey glow.

“This is not my usual style of lodging, I confess,” her eyes follow as Joan looks around the room, trailing fingers over the surface of the black rococo dressing table. “But it was close to the restaurant and I had, well-”

Joan turns to look at her, a smile playing on her lips. “You assumed we’d come back here?”

Jamie raises and drops a shoulder, her own lips curl into a wicked sort of smile. “Well…” They hold eye contact for a few seconds, and Joan watches, with some satisfaction as a blush spreads over Jamie’s cheeks.

“Would you like a drink? I’ve not yet inspected the refrigerator, but I’m assured it’s well stocked.”

Joan shakes her head. There’s a moment of inertia as they view each other from opposite sides of the room, but then Jamie crosses in three steps and she’s right there, in Joan’s space, smelling of cognac and oranges.

Joan lifts her chin receptively as Jamie’s mouth closes over hers. The kiss is an extension of their earlier one, and Joan feels herself getting lost in it until Jamie’s hands wander under her coat and Joan pulls back, suddenly remembering.

“Hold on,” she murmurs, leaving Jamie breathless and searching as she crosses the room and shrugs out of the coat. She folds it neatly over the back of the chair where Jamie had carelessly thrown her bag. She’s tempted to look over her shoulder, drawn by the heat of Jamie’s gaze as those eyes rake over her, making her feel languid and feverish all at once.

She reaches into her own bag and pulls out her phone to type out a brief message. Calmly, and with slow, careful movements, Joan puts the phone back in her bag and puts the bag on the chair.

In this cocoon of weightless desire, Joan feels brave, she feels less like she’s spinning, and more like she’s moving towards something, like every molecule inside of her is being pulled towards the other body in the room.

She turns around and walks back slowly. Jamie looks almost wary as Joan takes her face in her hands, smoothing her palms over Jamie’s cheeks to cup her face.

An exquisite face, Joan thinks, which she’s appreciated before, but never like this. Never with this strange combination of possessiveness and affection.

She leans up just a fraction and kisses Jamie with endless patience, as if they have all the time in the world. Soft lips, teasing, tasting, appreciating. She walks forward, until they hit a wall, but still, Joan pushes, and Jamie pushes back.

At some point, Jamie reaches behind and tugs off her heels. In stockinged feet, she’s level-height with Joan and the kiss becomes harder, more desperate as Jamie sucks on Joan’s lower lip, as if urging her infinitely closer. Jamie’s hands are greedy, demanding, mapping out the contours and elevations of Joan’s body, tugging at her shirt, at the waistband of her jeans, but never stopping long enough to actually rid her of anything.

They rock against each other, ribcages expanding and contracting, the animals within trying to escape and claw at each other. It’s a mad, desperate kind of thing.

Joan’s fingers trail a jagged path along Jamie’s spine, searching for a zipper, a button, something that will allow her to peel the crimson fabric off Jamie’s body and devour her skin. But her fingers feel clumsy and thick. She tears away from Jamie’s hungry mouth and turns her around, pushing her up against expensive wallpaper, moulding their bodies into one writhing, amorphous entity.

“How do I get you out of this thing?” Joan’s voice is a ragged whisper.

“Push it up,” Jamie replies, in an equally broken timbre.

And so Joan does. Pushing the soft fabric up until it pools around Jamie’s waist. She has every intention of yanking it off completely, but finds herself distracted by the thin, black wrapping which hides the full swell of Jamie’s sex.

Two fingers, pressed against wet lace and Jamie opens for her like some ripe fruit, sweet and gluttonous. Joan gasps against the soft, fragrant skin of Jamie’s neck as Jamie reaches back and tangles her fingers in Joan’s hair, nails digging into scalp as she tugs to fuse their mouths together. T

They drink each other in, teeth, tongues, shattered groans – all the clichés apply.

Joan steals and swallows her exhalation of breath and every whimper that follows.

Fingers dance against flesh in small rhythmic circles and Jamie bucks against Joan’s hips and Joan is drunk with desire and the sound of Jamie as she comes undone.

Finally, Jamie’s grip on Joan’s hair slackens and she turns around to face her with an expression of unrestrained wonder, as if she was not quite expecting the universe to explode within her. As if finding Joan as the architect of this explosion is even more surprising.

Gingerly, Joan raises her fingers, the tips pruned, as evidence of sin, and offers them to Jamie’s wanton rosebud mouth. She shivers as Jamie she sucks and swirls her tongue around them, her lust blue eyes fixed on Joan’s with a glint of promise.

Then Jamie is on her knees, her fingers deftly undoing the button of Joan’s jeans. The zipper echoes in the silence, the sound obscene interruption. Joan steps out of them, with a hand on Jamie’s shoulder to steady herself. Her bones feel like malleable.

Jamie looks up at Joan, from her place on the floor. “I could worship you,” she murmurs, lips against the damp cotton of Joan’s underwear. “It would be so easy.” She inhales deeply and Joan swallows back a choked sob of desire, lust, and something less definable, born of the reverence in Jamie’s voice.  

 She reaches out a hand to help Jamie stand. She doesn’t want Jamie looking up at her with softness and veneration. She wants fire and lust. That’s all this is allowed to be about.

Joan kisses her hard then, a clash if teeth and swollen lips, hoping the violence of the kiss can scrape at whatever she saw building up in Jamie’s face. It seems to work as they stumble back, towards the bed, ridding themselves of whatever clothing still clung to their bodies.

Joan is momentarily winded as she falls back onto the mattress with a bounce. Jamie wastes no time in following her. There’s something dangerous and predatory in the way her sleek, naked body crawls up and over Joan. An open-mouthed kiss against Joan’s cheek, her jaw, the soft space below her ear. Jamie’s lips trail a haphazard path along Joan’s collar bones, charting the stars scattered across her chest. She mumbles words that are lost against the softness of Joan’s breasts.

Joan’s breath comes out sharp and broken as Jamie draws a nipple into her warmth mouth, taking in as much as possible.  Joan arches up, wanting more of that mouth, wanting to be consumed, ruined and made whole again. Only Jamie can do that. She understands that now.

When Jamie moves her attention south and she uses her flat, broad tongue, Joan almost screams.  Jamie urges her knees further apart and settles down, lapping and sucking at her wet centre and Joan is lost in a swirling vortex of sensation. She utters broken pleas and promises, her arms spread out, white knuckles clutching at the fluffy duvet to keep herself from what she fears might be an ascension of sorts. Jamie’s lips clenched around her clit is the closest Joan has ever come to a religious experience. Turns out God is golden haired and has her head buried between Joan’s thighs.

She knots her fingers in that hair, which falls over Jamie’s shoulders and whispers against the insides of Joan’s thighs. Her grip tightens as Jamie slides in a finger, and then another, and then Joan does scream and the world breaks apart like one of her kaleidoscopes and it doesn’t matter whether it’s symbiosis or chaos, all that matters are those spiralling colours and their infinite beauty. 

It takes her a moment come back together and she feels Jamie’s lips, wet with the rarest of sugars, close again and again over the tiny mole on her inner thigh.

“Come here,” Joan manages in a husky voice and Jamie climbs back up, her arms trembling as she does so, all bee-stung lips and make-up that’s been kissed away. Joan suddenly thinks about how young she looks, how young she _is_ , and she is struck by a pang of tenderness, uninvited, but there nonetheless.

Gently, Jamie lowers herself against Joan, and the contact makes them gasp simultaneously. It’s almost too intimate. And Jamie looks panicked for the briefest moments, but Joan settles her hands against Jamie’s hips and holds her still, before canting up in one slick movement, which has Jamie’s eyes rolling back before she buries her face in Joan’s neck. It’s become something else, Joan thinks, as they move together, to an erratic kind of tempo, something different to what it started as. But she can’t think beyond this, beyond the heat of Jamie’s skin and contours of Jamie’s body and the low, steady moans Jamie makes as she rides out her orgasm.

She’s not sure how long they lie like that, waiting for the world to return to them.

Joan has an arm thrown up over her head, feeling languid and indolent in the best kind of way. She wonders if she should feel guilty about not feeling guilty, but the moment is fleeting and she decides to bask in whatever chemical reaction is happening inside her brain.

There is a mural painted on the ceiling above them. Most likely a replica of something famous. Cherubs and old men with beards are depicted in a golden hue. Jamie would have known, if she weren’t sprawled face down, her breath hot against Joan’s neck.

Somewhere a clock ticks.  Joan didn’t notice it before.

She takes a deep breath, causing her chest to rise and fall and Jamie lifts her head slightly, her nose brushing against the shell of Joan’s ear.

“Should I move?”

Joan’s hand strays to the small of her back. “No, you’re fine.”

Joan doesn’t generally do cuddling. She’s not particularly strict about it, but she likes her post-coitus space to breathe and stretch and collect the pieces of herself that came flying apart. She supposes that Jamie half-passed out on top of her doesn’t really count as cuddling, but it’s still more than she’s inclined to allow.

“There’s water in the fringe, if you’d like.” Jamie says in a throaty voice that makes Joan shiver. which could also be attributed to the fact that she’s stark naked with a slowly cooling body temperature.

“Yeah.” She clears her throat. “Water would be good.”

Jamie leans up on an elbow and looks down at Joan with a teasing expression. “Could you bring me a bottle as well, then?”

Joan’s laugh is silent, but it shakes them both. “In a minute. I’m waiting for feeling to return to my legs.”

Jamie smirks and flops to the side, and the missing body heat has Joan breakout in goose bumps.

She throws her legs over the side of the bed and stands. She’s not particularly modest, but in the face of Jamie’s rather blatant leering, she feels vaguely self-conscious.

She returns with one bottle, from which she drinks half before offering the rest to Jamie, who reclines lazily against the pillows, propped up on an elbow. She looks wild and regal all the same time, Joan thinks, settling down next to her.

The sound of the ticking clock fills the silence between then for a few beats until finally Jamie looks up and says, “Does this mean we’re going steady?”

Joan laughs. Really laughs. It’s a welcome release, an exodus of emotion that she hadn’t even realised she was holding on to. She takes the water bottle from Jamie and takes another sip. “Ask me again when I’m not buzzing with endorphins.”

Jamie stares at her long and hard, before asking in a voice that sounds faraway, “Will you regret this tomorrow?”

Joan turns to her. “You want the honest answer?”

“No,” Jamie whispers, leaning in to lick a slow path up Joan’s neck and to her ear. She nips at an earlobe. “Never.”

Perhaps Jamie’s right, Joan thinks, as she allows herself to be pulled back down.  

Sometimes truth is overrated.


End file.
